Bully Nation U.S.A....Bullies are Everywhere

Bullies - that small minority that makes life rough for the rest of us. Wrong. Most of us are bullies or have been at one time or another. You need not be physical to pick on someone, there are idealistic and political bullies everywhere who want to make you do things their way.

No wonder we have such a problem with children when they learn it from the adults. Our society thrives on bullying one another, shoving our views down each other’s throats.

It comes from the left and the right, no partiality here. Religious groups try and force their morals on us as a nation, despite separation of church and state, they take active political roles trying to bring laws of the nation into their liking. Eco groups try to restrict our choices too, for the benefits they see. None of these people care about you, your rights, or anything - except what you do that that disagrees with their personal agendas.

Maybe it is time to start being a bully too. I can be a cyber bully, shutting down all those with big mouths and agendas that infringe upon my privacy and right to believe what I want, and ruining their lives and organizations from my computer. Why not?

Because I would be just like them, forcing them to shut up when I can simply ignore most of them. Yet we have to stand up to these bullies. I am so sick of the gay marriage debate, for example. Gay rights groups believe laws should be changed to allow same sex marriages, well that is ok if the states and local authorities agree to it, but you cannot force the churches to marry people they do not want to. On the other hand churches or anyone else for that matter, have no right to deny these people a civil union or marriage in the eye of the state. After all, all marriages have to be registered with the state you live in. Personally I don’t care either way, but I do care that each side is bullying people trying to force their opinions on all.

I am an atheist, and would never think it is okay to tell a church what they have to do, whether I think they are stupid or not. But I also don’t want the church trying to mandate that I, or others, live according to their values, most of which I follow, but not all and certainly not in the name of any religion. I do not try to force religions to disband because I believe their creator is a figment of ancient imaginations and more empirical evidence exists for evolution that creation, and if we were created it was likely the result of another species similar to ours advancing as we are to the point where we are on the doorstep of creation ourselves. It is not my place to tell others what to think, nor theirs to tell me what to think.

We have evolved from a society of tolerance and freedom into a clique society that tries to force their wills upon one another. Kind of like my 2nd high school - only these aren’t juveniles we are talking about, just people that still act like 10 to 12 year olds.

The fact that we are losing respect for each other and turning the other way when people’s life choices differ from theirs means that we are going down fast. You wonder why everyone fears economic collapse, because with our lack of respect for each other we would soon have violence and no nation, just a series of territories with fighting everywhere as most of these groups would try to assert their views and authority. It is about the closest thing to anarchy that you could get.

I am not talking about murder, child abuse, etc. There are some laws that are universal in societies. We need to grow up and stop the bullying, religiously, politically and socially and learn to get along and share differences, or at least ignore them if you truly despise them. I have friends who are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddist, Socialists, Tea Partiers, democrats, republicans, conservative and liberal, smart and stupid. We may have interesting conversations and debates, but no one insists on changing the others life or views to conform to theirs. In fact we have all learned more about similarities than differences, we all have more in common than not - on everything from values to lifestyles. Also the fact that we don’t want to feel like others are forcing their ways upon any of us.

There is only one solution to the whole problem, but I don’t see it happening. People need to simply leave others alone and quit trying to make choices for other people. That means politically too, who are we to tell China how to run their affairs, they have over a billion people and problems that come with that which we have no clue about. How would we like it if those billion people suddenly came landing in Los Angeles and tried telling us what to do – we are outnumbered over 3 to 1.

It is a better person who lives their values not infringing them on others and yet is not frightened, scared or offended by others who believe differently. If every artist painted the same picture, recorded the same song or wrote the same books over and over again – life would be pretty boring. It is our differences which teach us, expand our knowledge and sometimes even gives us a different perspective that makes a difference.

The only other choice is a dissolving society, increased violence, possibly even revolution. I would rather see us wake up and realize how good we have it, never in the history of man have we built a society that generally allows a person freedom of choice in health, life, politics, death and religion. I for one would like to keep that.

Comments

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Jackie Lynnley 5 years agofrom The Beautiful South

You are right, I have certainly seen the bullies here at Hp. The great thing though is you can cut them off and delete them. If they can't be seen and heard they shut up pretty quick. Great write.

Larry Wall 5 years ago

When the freedom marchers were attacked by police in Atlanta, they were exercising their beliefs for equality. The police were showing they could be bullies. That was a long time ago and I really believe most of us have come a long way from that narrow-sighted view.

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Irob 5 years agofrom St. Charles

Larry/Jed - I so agree with you Larry, I come from a looong line of U.S & French military service (not me though. The U.S. Army Manual for Military Leadership Field Manual (Headquarters Dept. of Army, Washington D.C. 1993) itself suggest empathy with the people for whom a leader is responsible (ML, 233). The manual quotes an example of a platoon leader that motivated his troops by fear (bullying), but once the troops lives were threatened more by the enemy than their leader, they became rebellious towards their leader and ineffective as a unit (ML, 219). IT also mentions that the leader must set the exaqmpple that he wishes to follow (ML,42). Bullies breed bullies. Boot camp is one thing maybe, and learnig to follow orders to save your life and the life of your squad is one thing. But being an NCO, maybe you were not familiarized with these facts since this is a Leadership Field Manual. People I know in the military would not condone such a statement, maybe someome one from Ghengis Khans or Stalin's army would agree with you.

Larry Wall 5 years ago

This is in response to Jed Fisher's comment.

I had a brother in the Air Force, four Uncles in WWII, one was an officer, a nephew finishing ready to start his fourth year at the Naval Academy, a brother-in-law who was a Captain in Vietnam and a nephew by marriage, who is a Major in the Air Force and flies C-47s and air-to-air refulers. None of them are bullies. Exercising discipline is important. Earning respect of your men is important. You can do both without being a bully. By the way, one of the uncles who was in WWII became a police officer after the war. His son was a member of the Green Berets. Exercising discipline is important. Earning respect of your men is important. If you do those two things, you will get the job done without having to be a bully. If you have to resort to being a bully, then, in my humble opinion, you are not being a good leader. People respond to respect which is earned and authority which is also earned.

I had to deal with bullies all my life because I have a speech impediment. Do you thing you can bully me into speaking correctly--trust me, you cannot.

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Irob 5 years agofrom St. Charles

beadreamer247 = thanks for the comments. I am not sure where [people are getting police out of this, I never mention police, but I used to live in this little Gestapo place called St. george which made national news last year. But yes I guess police can be included since most of us are not completely innocent. I so agree about standing up, but only to the point when it infringes on others rights.

beadreamer247 5 years agofrom Zephyrhills, FL

I am quite confused here. I would not say Police officers are bullying, when they do their job right. What they do is enforcing the laws and keeping people in place.

I believe bullying has been around forever and even schools won't be able to stop it. They can stop it or control it somewhat within the school property - outside and after school it has little effect. It's not nice to be bullied, but it will always exist. I have been bullied all my childhood - yet, I have to say that without it I would not be who I am and while it affected me as a child in "negative" ways, in the long run I benefited from it. It made me stronger to see right and wrong, and not to do what has been done to me.

Everybody can be a bully at one time or another and we all are. And it is not just in the USA - worldwide. I don't believe there is a single country that does not have bullies.

I am wondering actually if this anti-bullying phenomena is a result of today's young adults, teens and kids. Their behavior and attitude has changed a lot in the past 20 yrs and we are trying desperately to reason and control what seems a little out of control. It's like picking on something to point fingers at, but it seems so helpless and useless.

I do not mean that I agree with bullying or that it is a nice thing - absolutely not! But I agree that bullying is part of society and will always exist. We also have to realize that the majority of people are NOT bullies. But we have a big problem with standing up for what is right and to speak up, and tend to close our eyes, shut our mouth and ignore what we see too often. We do this out of fear of loosing our job, loosing a friend, being bullied for speaking up/standing up for something or someone etc....and this gives bullies more freedom to act bad.

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Irob 5 years agofrom St. Charles

Jed and LArry...Thanks for your opinions, they all count. I lived in a place where you coudn;t complain against the police, yeah like high school made them madder and came after you more. They bullied people they stopped in their speed trap, kids and more. That police department was finally disbanded and taken down by a kid with a video camera. My grandfather, former police officer and alderman was beaten by one of the cops, yeah he won a nice settlement but the town lived in fear of bully officers.

Larry Wall 5 years ago

Putting the bullying that takes place on the school ground on the same level as professional police protection is almost insulting.

I can file a compliant against a policeman and not really fear any reprisal.

When I was in school, being pushed around because I was speech impaired, there was nothing I could do. I could not fight back--too many of them. Could not tell a teacher--that would just make the bullies angry. Could not tell the administration--they never saw anything.

I will not accept the fact that most of the population is composed of bullies. If that is true, then there is no hope for us. Voted down.

Jed Fisher 5 years agofrom Oklahoma

Society needs bullies. I was a professional bully, a non-commisioned officer in the Army. Bullying is esential to keeping order in an orgnaisation. The police we rely on to keep order, most of their job involves bullying. The thing is, police are effective bullies because they are coercing the individuals in society to conform to mandates handed down rather than their own personal beliefs. And that makes all the difference.